I did not support Michael Steele for Chairman of the Republican Party, but was perfectly happy to give him a chance to prove himself. That all pretty much went out the window the moment he decided to start throwing the race card around against Republicans when feeling threatened.If Michael Steele left tomorrow, I would not cry. As it stands now, the RNC under Michael Steele has raised a massive amount of money and spent a massive amount of money. There will not be much if any to hand over to state parties by November for the various victory funds.That said, the GOP won in New Jersey, Virginia, and Massachusetts, draining resources along the way. If we are going to blame Michael Steele for all the bad, we should at least charitably credit him for the good too.Were Michael Steele to leave the RNC tomorrow, what really would have changed? The incestuous culture of consultants will still be there sucking the same money from the building. The narrative will shift to the GOP throwing out the black man. Steele would become the sympathetic victim at the hands of evil racist Republicans who really always wanted that racist country clubber from South Carolina to be Chairman anyway.It serves no good purpose to try to oust Michael Steele right now. A two-thirds vote would be required. The votes aren’t there. The process would be ugly and would be a distraction. Steele could in various ways use RNC dollars to defend himself instead of beat the Democrats. The Democrats would use the opportunity to smear the GOP even more. Pursuit of removal would be folly.Please click here for the rest of the post.

One of the few votes Bob Bennett took in the Senate that was a legitimately conservative vote was against No Chlid Left Behind (”NCLB”).Bennett is now raising the issue of NCLB to highlight Tim Bridgewater’s past support and Bennett’s “nay” vote. Bennett is right that Bridgewater was wrong to support NCLB but Bennett’s record isn’t clean either.Senators DeMint and Cornyn introduced the APLUS Act in 2007 and in 2009 (S.1351) to give states the ability to opt out of the federal program so long as they meet overall standards. Has Bennett added his name as a cosponsor? No, he hasn’t. This is the #1 anti-NCLB bill in the Senate and has the support of the Heritage Foundation but Bennett is MIA (again).But there is another story here beyond the NCLB issue. It’s the fact that Mike Lee is the clear frontrunner and the real race now is for second place between Bennett and Bridgewater. It’s a race to see who might be able to reach the final ballot and force a primary against Mike Lee.Bennett knows that a lot of the delegates who are with Bridgewater right now have a slight establishment bent and can be won if he can prove to them that he’s more conservative on a key issue in Utah. The lesson here is for anyone supporting Bridgewater — don’t be fooled by Bridgewater or Bennett. Support Lee and let’s make sure he wins at the convention without a primary.Please click here for the rest of the post.

After watching with disgust and bluster the party-line passage of President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul, Americans are wont for substantive bipartisan cooperation. And around what better cause can Washington unite a fractured nation than by excising one of the most revolting poxes on civil society through the passage of federal “Rest in Peace” legislation? Kicking Fred Phelps‘ a** is just the dose of bipartisanship America needs and deserves.Albert Snyder, whose son Marine Lance Cpl. Matthew A. Snyder died in Iraq four years ago March, learned Friday an appeals court mandated he must pay for the legal fees of professional provocateur Rev. Phelps and his controversial Westboro Baptist Church, with whom he had been locked in a bitter and protracted legal dispute for several years now.“I think it’s a slap in the face,” Snyder said of the ruling. “It’s like, ‘Sorry Mr. Snyder, you buried your son for us, but we’re going to reverse the decision and we’re going to make you give them money so they can do this to more soldiers.’ I think it’s an insult to every soldier, Marine and veteran out there that has served this country.”Days after Snyder’s death, Phelps and a handful of WBC congregants traveled to the family’s home town of Finksburg, Maryland to share their gospel: God is punishing America for her tolerance of homosexuality, and young Snyder was the latest casualty in a brewing war with Heaven.Hurling their patented anti-gay invectives just feet from Snyder’s burial service, Phelps and his ilk came with their now-notorious “God hates fags,” “Semper fi fags,” “Fag troops” and “Thank God for dead soldiers” posters. Their signs left little to the imagination; Fred Phelps hates everyone, but few beyond gays and lesbians engender such disdain and hatred in his small black heart.Please click here for the rest of the post.

When you hear people rail against public workers and their union, there’s a reason for it.Not only do our taxes go to pay their salaries…and benefits…and pensions, they also go to pay their back pay when an arbitrator rules that not knowing that a plea bargain is a conviction doesn’t constitute falsification of an application.Hopefully, these aren’t the same public workers who read utility meters because, if they don’t know that a plea bargain is a conviction and omitting that on an application is falsification, they sure as heck have no business reading those little doohickeys that spin around on the side of your house.Please click here for the rest of the post.